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In technology, and unlike Hollywood movies, a sequel is expected to be significantly better than the former. Rumours ran rampant online in the weeks leading up to the official Galaxy S III (GS3) announcement, but does it have what it takes to be king of the Androids?

Design

The GS3 is one of the rare smartphone handsets that actually look better in person than it does in the pictures. It's "hyperglaze" finish earns the most groan-worthy marketing term of the year, so far, but it looks and feels fantastic. Our Marble White review unit is stunning, even after hours of sweaty hands all over it and despite the fact that it looks like a giant Tic-Tac.

Yes, it looks like a Tic-Tac, but it feels great in the hand.(Credit: CBSi)

The 4.8-inch Super AMOLED display is similarly superb, with more than enough pixels on offer to display crisp text and vivid images. There has been some conjecture online about Samsung using a PenTile sub-pixel array in this screen, unlike many of its other products, but we challenge anyone to spot the difference from a comfortable reading distance. If you don't know what a PenTile sub-pixel array is, don't let this bother you. This argument is a non-event.

The GS3 is only slightly larger than last year's Galaxy S2 (and 0.1mm thicker), so to accommodate the physical controls on the handset, Samsung has squashed them up a bit. The mechanical Home button is more or a sliver than a circle, and it can be tricky to use without touching the surrounding touch-sensitive areas. There is a volume rocker on the left of the phone and a Power button on the right, but no HDMI port, like you might find on some of the competition. The GS3 can connect to a TV via a micro-HDMI cable, though you'll need to fork out for a Mobile HD Link cable at a cost of about AU$40.

16- and 32GB variants of the GS3 will be available at launch, with both featuring micro-SD card slots to expand this memory further. The slot is located under the back cover, next to a micro-SIM slot and an enormous 2100mAh battery.

User experience and performance

Samsung's TouchWiz UI hasn't been well loved in previous releases. At best, some users are ambivalent; at worst, they outright hate it. This latest iteration is a big step forward in our opinion. It maintains a lot of the usability tweaks of the previous version, like quick Home page switching by swiping along the pagination icons, but it is also a lot more polished. The icons seem familiar, but have a sharper, higher-resolution design; the notification now has an extended settings shortcut bar; and you can now launch applications directly from the lockscreen. But perhaps more importantly, there is still plenty of Google's Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) design present here too. Samsung has skinned ICS, but not so much that it obscures what we love about it.

There are a number of cool new tweaks to note, too, including some cool gesture controls. To take a screenshot, for example, you can swipe across the screen with your palm or the side of a finger. When you are in the Messaging app, you can lift the phone to your ear to start a call with the contact whose message you've been reading. Not ground-breaking features, but very handy enhancements. We were disappointed to discover that the GS3 doesn't include a Swype keyboard though; the first Samsung phone not to have Swype for a long time.

The GS3 is the first phone to feature Samsung's new quad-core Exynos processor, and boy is it a beauty. In the performance benchmarks we ran across all Android phones, the GS3 has steamed ahead, scoring top marks in web standards execution, 3D graphics rendering and basic number crunching. We don't tend to put much faith in these tests, but the results are fairly conclusive — this is one fast phone.

More importantly, it is a fast phone with decent battery life. Last year's Galaxy S II was held back by poorer battery performance, and we're glad to see Samsung pay special attention to this all-important consideration. It's 2100mAh battery may not sound like a huge improvement on the 1800mAh battery in many other phones, like the HTC One X, but it certainly adds up to several hours of extra use each day.

Battery life (time)

Wi-Fi browsing

720p video playback

5h 45m7h 8m

Samsung Galaxy S3

3h 43m4h 6m

HTC One XL

3h 21m3h 47m

HTC One X

(Longer bars indicate better performance)

More impressive though: the GS3 has excellent standby battery life. For example, we noticed that the phone lasted an entire weekend — Saturday morning to Sunday evening — without being recharged, even with Wi-Fi on and Account syncing occurring automatically in the background. When we took a closer look at this battery use in standby, we saw that it takes six or more hours to discharge the battery 10%. This is a huge improvement on last year's release and sets the S3 well ahead of its nearest competitors.

Camera

Samsung's latest smartphone camera matches the HTC One X on paper, with a similar array of features and speed. The camera on the GS3 launches in under a second and can fire a photo in the same time. It also has a burst photo mode, letting you shoot up to eight images and then select the "best shot" to keep.

Joe capitalises on a life-long love of blinking lights and upbeat MIDI soundtracks covering the latest developments in smartphones and tablet computers. When not ruining his eyesight staring at small screens, Joe ruins his eyesight playing video games and watching movies.
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